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by legitster 82 days ago

???

People bring this up regularly, but I don't think it's that relevant. Studies regularly show that campaign contributions actually have very low influence on elections.

Trump notably had much smaller campaign budgets than his opponents in both winning elections, not even including the massive amounts of brazen fraud he used to pay himself with the money.

Fundamentally, it's presidential democracy that is flawed. We have a very powerful high office, and if enough people want to willing vote in a corrupt president, there's really not many checks against the damage that they can do.

6 comments

swivelmaster 82 days ago

Yes, it's possible to win with less money than your opponent, but why would anyone want to take that risk?

The problem with money in politics is not that money guarantees a win, but that the presence of large donations distorts the entire incentive structure of campaigning and governing: Courting big donations means spending time with big donors (who expect access in exchange for their money) and when it comes time to govern, studies have shown that campaign contributions and lobbying are dramatically more influential to what gets proposed and passed than the preferences of the general public.

Focusing on the problems with presidential campaigns re: money in politics is missing the forest for the trees: All politicians have limited time to spend between campaigning and governing, and if they're constantly raising money the governing gets delegated to lobbyists.

(This is why people are always so shocked when politicians who don't accept corporate PAC contributions have drastically different priorities than those who do. Of course they do! They don't have to spend all their time hanging out with corporate lobbyists!)

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legitster 82 days ago

This doesn't really speak to Citizens United though. The nature of Dark Money is that no one knows where it comes from, so politicians cozying up to their donors is not actually the particular concern here.

(Also, there has been the opposite trend, which is that more money than ever comes from private donations from billionaires and other wealth.)

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alecbz 82 days ago

> if enough people want to willing vote in a corrupt president

Why do people do this though? Maybe it's inevitable, but I think there was a lot of pent up frustration with the government that led a lot of people to just say "fuck it". Not really excusing it (especially for his second term), but I feel like we're reaping years and years of a dysfunctional and ineffectual congress. Not that that's an especially easy problem to solve either.

I think this also explains a lot of the frustration with SCOTUS. In-theory, SCOTUS is supposed to just interpret and flesh out the policies decided on by congress. In practice, congress doesn't really do anything, and people started depending on SCOTUS's ability and willingness to make far-reaching and impactful decisions. Now a more conservative SCOTUS isn't doing that.

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legitster 82 days ago

It's worth noting that an ineffective and gridlocked congress is specifically a problem of presidential-style democracies. Parliamentary systems with a prime minister have some of their own shortcomings (notably a weak executive), but the government is actually controlled by the legislature.

Countries that follow the presidential model regularly succumb to strong man type leaders. Ironically, in the modern era when the US had a hand in helping other countries establish their governments, we specifically helped them establish parliaments.

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alecbz 82 days ago

I don't think parliamentary systems help the legislature remain effective, since they're still elected in roughly the same way, no?

But yeah, it prevents an ineffective legislature from leading to strong-men, which does seem nice. :)

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JKCalhoun 81 days ago

I agree there is a lot of pent up frustration in the U.S. and the GOP did a bang-up job of cultivating this frustration. And now that they have their chance at bat they seem to be striking out.

At the risk of my analogy making something serious sound like a game, I'd like to see another team have a chance at bat.

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stonogo 82 days ago

Citizens United affected far more than campaign contributions. Non-campaign political spending (aka "outside spending") has increased nearly eightfold and shows no signs of slowing down.

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tengbretson 81 days ago

The electoral college gets a bad rap, but I almost wonder if going back to not having state popular votes determine presidential electors might be the move.

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litoE 81 days ago

I also think that the system of party primary elections by popular vote is a big part of the problem. To win the Republican primary you have to be more "Republican" than your opponents. Ditto for the Democratic primary. Then you end up with candidates at the far ends of the spectrum instead of more centrist ones.

In congress this means a complete inability to compromise, resulting in the current stalemate. In the presidency, you end up with someone who thinks of his opponents as criminals deserving prosecution.

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JKCalhoun 81 days ago

Maybe you can convince yourself that both are problems (and the U.S. should endeavor to address both).

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mykowebhn 82 days ago

Can you include references for the studies you mention?

> Trump notably had much smaller campaign budgets than his opponents in both winning elections

I'm not sure where you're getting this information.

> Fundamentally, it's presidential democracy that is flawed.

No disagreement

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legitster 82 days ago